Large, varied T.O. crowd ponders Ideas Worth Spreading

Westlake High School student Zak Kukoff discusses his real-time management system for schools looking to better track their truant populationsduring TEDxConejo, an event to bring together college students, high school students, educators, parents and the general public of the community for talks and conversation, at the Thousand Oaks Civics Arts Plaza, in Thousand Oaks.

David K. Yamamoto / Special to The Star

Westlake High School student Zak Kukoff discusses his real-time management system for schools looking to better track their truant populations at TEDxConejo, an event to bring together college students, high school students, educators, parents and the general public of the community for talks and conversation, at the Thousand Oaks Civics Arts Plaza, in Thousand Oaks.

David K. Yamamoto / Special to The Star

Westlake High School student Adam Raudonis discusses how his model for raising money for installing solar power in school during TEDxConejo, an event to bring together college students, high school students, educators, parents and the general public of the community for talks and conversation at the Thousand Oaks Civics Arts Plaza, in Thousand Oaks.

David K. Yamamoto / Special to The Star

Tim Parsey, co-founder of Shiftalliance, a company focused on “meaningful business models,” and Elizabeth Topp, the founder of Presence-Based Coaching, give a presentationSaturday at TEDxConejo, an event to bring together college students, high school students, educators, parents and the general public of the community for talks and conversation at the Thousand Oaks Civics Arts Plaza in Thousand Oaks.

David K. Yamamoto / Special to The Star

Ideas Worth Spreading — the theme of the first TED event in Conejo Valley — attracted almost 400 people to a Thousand Oaks theater Saturday.

People packed the Scherr Forum Theatre to hear eight hours of talks on innovations in subjects as diverse as education, medicine and aircraft.

"I've never produced a show like this before," said Don Levy, one of the event organizers. "We wanted to create a community of thinkers and doers."

TED, which stands for Technology, Environment and Design, was until recently an annual conference of top thinkers and business leaders who paid $6,000 each to attend. TEDxConejo is an offshoot, one of hundreds of independently organized TED events around the world.

Tickets to Saturday's event were a relative bargain at $40 for adults and $10 for students and teachers.

"I believe this is the first TED event that is co-sponsored by a school district," said Mario Contini, superintendent of the Conejo Valley Unified School District.

School-to-career counselors at CVUSD came up with the idea for a TEDxConejo event as they worked with parents from the district to improve educational opportunities.

Contini said about 40 percent of the audience was students. Student speakers and performers were on the agenda along with adult experts in various fields.

Hogan Fulton, a freshman at Thousand Oaks High School, wowed the crowd by first playing the piano and singing, then standing up to perform a showy dance number that combined ballet and contemporary moves.

Mark Robert Waldman, a researcher and writer in neuropsychology, told the audience members that meditating on big ideas can help their brains work better and that focusing on the negative is harmful to our bodies.

"What is your big idea?" he asked. "By meditating on it for as little as eight weeks, you can begin to change the structure of your brain."

Steen Strand, co-founder of ICON Aircraft, talked and showed video about an airplane his company is developing for recreational fliers. The stylish small plane has wings that fold so it can be moved on a trailer and parked in a driveway, and it takes off and lands both on water and the ground.

Levy said much of the value of the conference comes from the exchange of ideas among audience members during breaks.

"The volume of conversation in this room at lunch is probably the best indication of what is happening here," said Levy. "You are hearing the energy of people who are stimulated by these ideas."

Newbury Park High School Student Elliott Bowles, 17, agreed.

"It's so great, so much fun being a student and having the opportunity of experience all these great minds," he said.